Electronics Hardware Obsolescence - The Problems...

Electronics hardware components or even hardware system obsolescence is a recurring event, it is always going to happen, as the clock ticks on into days, months and years of component and system life. At least we know that obsolescence is going to happen to us in the future, or do we forget about it until it happens?

There could be a number of situations where electronic hardware obsolescence is affecting your project or the system that you have either designed, maintained or perhaps you're redesigning to replace an old system, incorporating newer technology, more bandwidth.

Some of the issues that you will come up against are:

• Pin compatibility, either from an electronic board or system chassis.
• The technology has ceased to exist or will not exist soon.
• The backplane technology has insufficient bandwidth for new system requirements.
• An electronic board component has ceased to exist, with no other replacement available.
• A COTS provider has changed board designs or  longer manufacture the board  that you might use.
• The Operating System is no longer supported or a kernel change will not work with your drivers.
• The electronics hardware supplier has provided a new and different software library.

In the world of COTS providers there are standards for VME, cPCI, VXS, VME, ATCA, Micro TCA and others. However, there are no standards on how the boards and IO should be interconnected together. Therefore, most COTS vendor designs their chassis, processor and IO boards in a proprietory manner.

My next BLOG will look at how obsolescence issues might be analysed in order to find solutions for the future.

You can contact me directly at Bob@SolutionConcepts.co.uk if you would like help or advice on your electronic obsolescence or legacy project. Alternatively, take a look at our web site www.solutionconcepts.co.uk

If you have a topic that you would like me to talk about, please contact me to discuss, I'll be more than happy to share my experience and expertise.

Hardware Obsolescence - EOL

Life these days is very dynamic, nothing is guaranteed anymore, as we all know. The days of a job for life are well and truly gone... Bigger companies keep acquiring smaller companies and as a result people and products get canned, which is bad news for everyone.

So I have been looking at legacy hardware problems in the market place, knowing that most of the electronic board suppliers, well at least the MIL AERO companies that I worked for, typically would not offer to provide new software, but normally insisted that you, the customer, rewrite your software for the new hardware, which will most likely be End Of Life in another FIVE years!

As we all know in the software world, changing software means extra cost in resource to design, implement and test. It's possible with a safety critical system that some certification effort will be needed, which is very costly, all for a board costing a few $1,000 dollars...

Sound Familiar?

What's the answer?
Next I'll talk about some cost effective answers to these legacy issues.